Thursday, August 30, 2007

I live on a busy street and until a few nights ago I didn't know the neighbors who live on a big plot of land on the opposite side of the road.

For the past few weeks they have been building an animal pen in their yard and this week it had an animal in it.

I decided to walk The Mayor and Rooster across the street to investigate.

My neighbors were outside and they waved and invited the three of us to meet them at their fence gate.

We made our introductions and then, because we live in a city, I had to ask,

"What's with the pony?"

My neighbors looked both amused and defeated and the husband said,

"I toldour eleven year old daughter she couldn't enter that essay contest because the prize was a horse, but what did my wife say? Oh, HONEY. We never win ANYTHING. It'll be okay. So I signed the waiver and she entered the contest."

Oops. Their daughter won the essay contest and the pony.I apologized for my tears of laughter, but I couldn't help myself.

What is the fondest dream of eleven year old girls everywhere? Winning a pony, right?!Can you imagine what it would be like if your child wrote an essay and won a horse?

You would be powerless.

That pony would be moving into your backyard and costing you twenty thousand bjillion dollars.

So it goes for my neighbors...

The Family Joy is invited to visit the four month old foal named Storm anytime we wish.There is a God and he has blessed me with hours and hours of free kiddie entertainment right across the street.

All bow down in praise of the great and powerful one who delivers ponies unto thy neighbor's (and not my) backyard!!

Congrats, indeed!What kind of contest delivers a pony prize? Where do my neighbors sign up? That's awesome!I'll leave you with a little Lyle:If I had a boatI'd go out on the oceanAnd if I had a ponyI'd ride him on my boatAnd we could all togetherGo out on the oceanMe upon my pony on my boat.

OMG!!!!! As a parent you would be screwed...I was when Miss-D's preschool sent home little bitty yellow baby chicks....The chick-Little Bo Peep lived in our house-free range, for almost a year. She was paper trained and would come when called...but having a house chicken was just weird.

That is such a random prize for an essay contest. I mean, I could see a family pack of tickets to Six Flags or something.. a savings bond... geesh. Wouldn't living on a farm be a requirement for entering a contest with that as a prize!?

This leaves me with so many questions, I don't know where to begin. Sigh.

A pony? In the city? In a cage? For winning an essay contest? Oh my, my, my. You must keep us updated. Are you starting a pool (poll?) for how long it will take for the neighbor/parents to put their collective feet down and sell the pony? Could make for an interesting little contest. I give it three weeks.

I seriously would like to read the essay that yielded your neigh-bor (I know, I know) a pony. A PONY!

My parents did it right. When I was about that age, having read Black Beauty and deciding that I too, wanted to have a pony, my parents called my bluff and said, "Sure." I could have a pony if I took care of it every single day - mucking the stall, feeding it, and doing all the other pony maintenance. I folded.

OMG that is hysterical. Poor neighbors. Good dad though for building a fence for the pony. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have gone down like that in my house. Nice ice breaker with the neighbors though.

That Church of Zoo thing is really working out for you! I need to start attending since my neighbors this week moved a flock of chickens into their yard...smelly, noisy and not at all cute like a pony. I do hope the pony at least gets its own rented stall before it is much bigger.

I found out as an adult that my parents were all ready to get me a pony at that age (we lived in the country) but my sister totally vetoed them (she was an adult by that point) because she never had a pony. Cruel, cruel world.

We won half a pig once at the County Fare - same situation - Dad said, oh, we don't ever win, sure I'll pitch in for the 4-H. Weeks later, he was sure surprised to get a phone call from the Porkers Association asking when they could deliver the 1/2 a pig... Didn't need a pen, just a big freezer...and, yes, we even got 1/2 a tongue.

Yeah, you gotta be careful letting your kids do anything. We let our daughter raise a puppy for a seeing eye dog non-profit. A year and half we trotted around with that dog to church and to restaurants teaching him to be a great seeing eye dog. Guess what? He's blind in one eye and now we have for the rest of his sweet little doggy life and the girl child? Well she'll be going off to college and we'll just be empty nesters with a dog we hadn't counted on. Good thing he's so cute and loveable!

When I was in first grade, I won a chick. My class hatched eggs in an incubator, and two chicks survived. The entire first grade (four classes of 30 kids) was allowed to enter a drawing and my mom allowed me to do so only because she was SURE I'd lose. Surprise. Not only did I win, but I unknowingly chose the male. Which meant that six months laters, there were some very confused neighbors in downtown San Diego trying to figure out where that CROWING was coming from!

I hope everything works out for your neighbors. Having owned horses as a teenager, I know how much work they are (especially an unbroken colt!) but it can also be very rewarding.

OMGosh! I haven't laughed that hard in MONTHS! Please thank your neighbors for their piece of sunshine and humor hitting my piece of Canada and thanks for posting - you are always a Joy to Read! ROFLMAO!~!!!

Priceless. Steam has a neighbor who's yard abuts his and they have chickens AND 12 chicks. And eggs. Finding worms and feeding the chickens offer hours of entertainment for the kids the few times we have gone there to play with Steam's son.

71 comments is just too many for me to read each and every one, and I doubt anyone knows my story (though may have similar). When I was -- well, maybe 11? What's 7th grade? We had a HUGE backyard. I asked my parents if I could have a horse. I was an extremely shy kid, so my parents figured they'd be helpful but nip this in the bud by telling me that if I went up to City Hall and found out what the zoning was in our neighborhood regarding horses, then they'd think about it.

Much to their astonishment (am sure they looked at each other and thought "Oh, shit" when I came home) I rode my bike up to town, marched into the Town Hall, asked who I needed to ask, went there and asked, and came home to report that as long as the neighbors didn't complain, we were free and clear to have a horse.

I never got one. But did get to go to TWO horseback riding day camps that summer!

HA. If that happened in our neighborhood, they'd not only have a new pony, but a new kid as well. My DO would make a pure nuisance of himself. That poor guy is going to have every kid in the neighborhood camped outside his front door!

Hilarious! I won a contest when I was 11 and my parents had to consent to letting me go to Egypt for a month (in 1979!) I would so be those parents, good for their daughter, may she always be taken seriously from now on. Can't wait to hear how it all unfolds.

Amazing! I would have killed to win a pony. Where I grew up, our backyard was practically vertical -- a hill covered in ivy. We knew someone who was giving away a pinto. My dad said we couldn't take it because the horse would have two legs shorter than the other.

(wrinkle brow)

What an amazing child too -- I wonder what the essay was? Can you get a copy?

I won a rabbit in a school reading contest in 6th grade. Brought it home, and found it to be rather annoyingly antisocial, plus it had this habit of backing up against the cage and peeing out. My mother found another family to take it. I wasn't sad though. It wasn't a pony after all.